Bordeaux Bay

Watercolour by Tony Taylor http://www.paintingbreaksguernsey.com

Wednesday, 8 February 2017

WINGS OF A DOVE

This curious poem turned up during a recent spring-clean: I had thought it lost forever.I recall that when I wrote it I struggled to find a title and finally settled for Yellow.The alternative choice was Dorothy, the name of the character played by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy is also the name of the sister of William Wordsworth, with whom the poet lived at Dove Cottage in the Lake District.In the poem, I imagined the two Dorothys being, briefly, one person.

YELLOW

A great wind ripped the cottage from its moorings,hurled it, spinning,upwards and away

then released itspinning earthwardsto somewhere that wasn’t Kansas.

She stumbled outdoors intoTechnicolor!!!

acquired a pair of ruby slippers,skipped down the Yellow-Brick Roadwith Scarecrow, Tin-Man and the Cowardly Lion,to find the Emerald City

then, grown homesick, Dorothy clicked heels three times.

Awoke.

She found the day turned monochrome,the beds unmade, no supper readyfor her brother.

William burst in: he noticed nothing.

I’ve seen a host of daffodils, he cried. I think I’ll use them in a poem.

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